Ideas and Literature to Make Everyday Count

10 Things Everyone Can Learn From a 93 Year Old

My grandpa, 93 years old passed away 13 days ago. It was a beautiful sunny day just like his beautiful heart. He passed away one day before his birthday and I still celebrated it with cake keeping his tradition bringing the best cakes to all of our birthdays. My heart hurts from the thought of not having him among us but soon I’ll meet him again!

I want to share with you 10 things you can learn from a life of a 93 year old man:

Wise man. He never got tired telling me the secret of a long life; work hard, eat well and rest even if you only close your eyes and not sleep. So, he would always ask if I am doing these things and if I said YES, then everything was going well.

He never talked bad about others for the sake of harmony. If you would share a secret with him, he’d always keep it.

He didn’t care who you were, what background you had, what was your occupation; you would be respected! Everyone loved him. Two minutes with him would turn a frown face in a smiley one. He was respected from kids to shop owners to even the policemen he would greet as he would do his daily walk. People unknown to me would ask me, “How is your grandpa? We haven’t seen him in a couple of days taking his walk so…” Yes, they knew me as Grandpa’s Granddaughter because even others would call him Grandpa.

He saved money sacrificing his wishes just to be able to give to others. For my wedding he gave me money that I never thought my grandpa had.

Always went on vacation with family. He loved his wife and family. He would walk holding hands with his wife and always brag about her. He would mention often how he still can’t believe that such a beautiful girl like my grandma would marry him. But grandma would reply, “You had a very good heart!”

Repetition was his big thing! He would repeat things to us. When I was little I didn’t know why he’d repeat stuff so many times, but now I know! I remember a lot of what he said!

He was a veteran that had ideals for a better world. He fought against Germany in the Second World War. All of my grandparents actually. He was put in prison but then was let free. After the war ended he lived during one of the cruelest regimes of communism in the country of Albania. (I’ll write more stories about that since I experienced throughout my childhood)

From being an Atheist he started believing in the power of prayer and he’d pray with us. It all started at my wedding when my husband and I wanted for all to know the love and freedom you can find in Christ. After that, more questions were answered and he opened his heart to another world he didn’t know.

Never gave up. He would read, learn about the world politics or news, he would just sit and think for an hour sometimes. In 2010 he wrote a little book detailing the history of our family. As the oldest living he wrote stories of the family roots and family tree.

Dressed up nice. Even on walks he would put a hat on, a nice suit and later his cane. When we would go visit he’d put nice clothes on even though he didn’t have many. He found a reason everyday to dress nice for the people he would meet.

Well, there are so many more things I would share but I figured 10 is a good number to memorize and easier to learn. I hope you got to know just a little bit of how great a person my grandpa was.